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Doing development differently: Harvard workshop

22 - 23 October 2014

Workshop

Description

ODI is collaborating with Matt Andrews at the Buidling State Capacity programme at Harvard's Centre for International Development to host a series of events on 'doing development differently.' These aim to showcase practical experience on new strategies for designing, implementing and evaluating development programmes in more innovative ways. This event was the first in the series. Find out more about the follow up - held in Manila, the Philippines, in April 2015 - here.

A growing body of work shows that
development interventions often have a limited impact, especially when
targeting improved governance and service delivery by the state. This
observation has inspired many efforts to rethink the practice of development,
and a number of new strategies have emerged for designing, implementing and
even evaluating development projects and initiatives.

The evidence base for ‘doing development
differently’ however, it still emerging and remains highly fragmented among
different communities of practice. Moreover, policymakers still report
challenges in operationalizing these findings into changed approaches.

This event - funded in part by the World Bank's Governance Partnership Facility - brought together practitioners and researchers trying these
new development practices out or carrying out thorough analytical work on them.
These employ different tools but generally hold to some of the same core
principles: being problem driven, iterative with lots of learning, and engaging
teams and coalitions, often producing hybrid solutions that are ‘fit to
context’ and politically smart. This event was an opportunity to share practical
lessons and insights, country experience, and to experiment first hand with
selected methodologies and design thinking.